Date of Award
Fall 12-2022
Degree Type
Masters Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
School
Communication
Committee Chair
Dr. Brent Hale
Committee Chair School
Communication
Committee Member 2
Dr. Steven Venette
Committee Member 2 School
Communication
Committee Member 3
Dr. Lindsey Maxwell
Committee Member 3 School
Communication
Abstract
The proliferation of social media has made it incredibly simple to quickly disseminate valuable information to a large audience. Thus, numerous organizations are now heavily leveraging these social networking platforms as a means for managing their crisis responses. Through a content analysis of 355 posts concerning the Ukraine-Russia conflict made by five large UN humanitarian organizations between February and May, 2022, on their official Facebook pages, this study investigated organizational crisis communication patterns. Findings suggest that UN humanitarian organizations extensively used "threat" and "need for change" as crisis characteristics to delineate the Ukraine-Russia situation, whereas “protection of safety and security,” “medical assistance,” and “fundraising” appeared as prevailing crisis response themes. Furthermore, “like,” “care,” and other reactions skewed toward posts that called for a “peaceful resolution” of the war. Finally, this study recommends creating war-crisis messages using defensive framing, and fortifying negative sentiment.
ORCID ID
0000-0003-2990-4129
Copyright
Rubaiya Zannat
Recommended Citation
Zannat, Rubaiya, "CRISIS COMMUNICATION IN THE UKRAINE-RUSSIA CONFLICT: USE OF FACEBOOK BY UN HUMANITARIAN ORGANIZATIONS" (2022). Master's Theses. 948.
https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/948